Stonehenge   We think Stonehenge is very amazing because it has stood there for so long with nobody knowing who built it and why!

  For over 5000 years it been standing silently, challenging people to find out:  Who built it? What was it for? 

The original construction was a circular ditch with 56 holes forming a ring around it's perimeter. It also has a lot of barrows (burial mounds) around it.

Some of the gigantic stones weighed as much as 26 tons, that's a lot of weight!!!

       Carefully carved lintels were placed on top of pairs of upright stone blocks. These were held in place with ball and socket joints, like our arms and legs.  These gigantic stones were built in the country of England, which still stands here today.

       There are many unanswered questions about StoneHenge.  Because of the weight of the stones, we aren't sure how it was  built, or who built it.  That type of stone can't be found anywhere near Stonehenge. But many archaeologists have made intelligent guesses. Many scientists agree that Stonehenge was built for some form of a religious temple. They also think that it was a connected to sun or moon worshippers, because the sun marks the rising and setting of them. But they don't KNOW it's real purpose. 
       

      There is also a carving of a dagger.  It seems to be the same dagger used in Greece at that time.   In the area around Stonehenge, in many of the barrows, beads and other ornaments have been found. They have been traced back to countries around the Mediterranean Sea.

    It also is known that trading went on between England and Germany and other middle European countries at that time.  If the dagger seen on the Sarsen stone is Greek, it may answer the question 'Who designed it?'

       
  The shovels used to dig the ditches were made from the shoulder blades of cattle. Modern archaeologists have tried using these simple tools to prove it can be done. They were really suprised to find out that  the tools worked almost as well as our modern-day tools like  picks, shovels, and buckets!

They found a skeleton of a man buried about the time when the bluestones were brought to Stonehenge. He holds a pottery drinking vesssel and was buried with his bronze dagger. They also found more copper and bronze daggers of the early bronze age.

THANKS FOR READING ABOUT STONEHENGE.                        
      

           KRISTEN   
AND
CASSANDRA

All images of Stonehenge by G. Woodard, 1998. Photos and permission received in person.